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Topic: System Specs for LinuxMCE box? (Read 5573 times)

I'm about to purchase a new motherboard, cpu and case to use with LinuxMCE and was hoping for confirmation that this hardware will allow me to get the most out of the software.Motherboard: MSI K9AGM2-FIH 690G Socket AM2 1000MHz DDR2-800 M-ATXCPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4600+ Socket AM2 (65W)Case: Antec NSK2480I have the Hauppauge PVR-150 which I will bring over to the new box as well as 2 gigs RAM and 2 SATA HDDs (320 & 500gb).My main use of the box will be as a media center with PVR and music use as well as a NAS.Any thoughts/suggestions?Also, the AMD 690G chipset that the MB uses can do separate VGA and HDMI out. I plan on sending the VGA signal to an old TV and the HDMI to my computer monitor via a 30 foot HDMI to DVI cable. Will the software allow me to have two separate displays (rather than showing the same thing on each display)?Thanks in advance,E

Let me guess, that mainboard has an SB600 sata controller and an X1250 graphics chip. Those currently have more then their fair share of problems. I'm expecting the upcoming 0710 release to solve at least some of the issues, but I think you'd probably want to pick something else. Untill then it's only usable with IDE drives and you can probably forget about running MythTV.

And I wouldn't get my hopes up to high for that dual screen setup if I were you, that's not how the system was intended so it's likely going to be a bitch to set it up if even possible at all.

The problem is specificly MythTV related, other then that LMCE runs fine (as does Kaffeine when playing TV for instance). In all honesty I haven't tried the very latest version of the ATI drivers yet, but I doubt the issue has been solved already.

eoren1: The geforce 6,7 & 8 series all seem to work well, although some of the newer ones may require a manual update of the display drivers after installing LMCE (at the moment, but likely to change when the new version is released) I don't recall anyone reporting that they were unable to get them to work properly. But I can't give you any guarantees as I haven't tried that specific board myself.

eoren1: The geforce 6,7 & 8 series all seem to work well, although some of the newer ones may require a manual update of the display drivers after installing LMCE (at the moment, but likely to change when the new version is released) I don't recall anyone reporting that they were unable to get them to work properly. But I can't give you any guarantees as I haven't tried that specific board myself.

Zaerc... I am running straight over to the Wiki now to update the hardware pages ;-)

Awesome, the more the merrier! Thanks on behalf of all the people looking for a good mainboard, much appreciated.

And on a sidenote: I'm really looking forward to VDR support, since I'm stuck with that forementioned X1250 chipset myself.

Well we're working hard on vdr integration and we hope that it will make it into the lmce-0710 release ;-)

By the way I may need some assistance with updating the Wiki... I tried updating the hardware page but when I click on 'Edit' the page I get has an edit field with just a include block in it. I was expecting to get editable markup like i would for a detail link. I know this is not place for Wiki support but some tips from the 'master' would be welcome ;-)

I'm not that skilled in editing the wiki either, I just look at other edit pages and try things as I go along, the "Show preview" button usually comes in handy. But I guess some directions on adding new stuff is overdue a bit as it's not so intuitive, and I never realized this is one of the things keeping people from adding stuff. If this is useful I'll put it in the wiki as well.

For hardware I think the best convention is: "Manufacturer_Model-Type-Whatever", in your case that would be: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/MSI_MS-7329. To categorize the page so that it's easy to find, you can put this at the top of the page:

<nowiki>this will stop the wiki from applying formatting, useful if you don't want url's turned into links for instance</nowiki>

Alternatively you can also use the standard HTML tags. I hope I got all that right and that it's enough to get you started. The headings will be put into a table of contents at the top, but only when the page gets long enough I think.

The Nvidia 7050 chipset doesn't work with the driver built into LMCE. And the new driver published by Nvidia is very crashprone. There is a newer beta driver but its beta and may not be very stable. The MSI board TotallyMaxxed suggested is pretty special and not available here in the US, however it should work pretty well. (BTW the link seems either broken or on a very slow server). I would stick with a 6150 chipset because they work. I couldn't find a speed or feature difference between them except HDMI that would matter. Asus M2NPV-VM.

The Nvidia 7050 chipset doesn't work with the driver built into LMCE. And the new driver published by Nvidia is very crashprone. There is a newer beta driver but its beta and may not be very stable. The MSI board TotallyMaxxed suggested is pretty special and not available here in the US, however it should work pretty well. (BTW the link seems either broken or on a very slow server). I would stick with a 6150 chipset because they work. I couldn't find a speed or feature difference between them except HDMI that would matter. Asus M2NPV-VM.

The MS-7329 board is not 7050 based it uses the nVidia C51PVG onboard graphics chip which is a 6150 class part and is supported out of the 'box' by lmce-0704 (we are running the standard lmce-0704 drivers as they work perfectly on this chip). This board is an excellent board and we would rate as certainly one of the best we have tested under lmce.

The link is not broken by the way... maybe its just slow from where you are located.